Photograph of Catherine Birkhead Trimble as a Senior at Worthington High School

Catharine Birkhead Trimble (b. 1905, d. 2001) was born in Worthington to parents James and Lettie Hood Birkhead who had ten children. The Birkhead family lived in the building that was once the Worthington Manufacturing Company’s boarding house in the 1810s and was part of Camp Lyon during the Civil War, and still stands today on Fox Lane. The Birkheads raised fruits and vegetables on the property that were sold in Worthington and surrounding areas.

Catharine attended school and graduated in 1924 from Worthington High School and in 1926 from the Normal Department at Wilberforce. She married Dwight Trimble in 1928, and the couple, who resided in Delaware, had three children. Later she attended Ohio Wesleyan University, receiving her Bachelors of Science Degree in Education in 1962 from Central State University at Wilberforce, Ohio. For two decades, Trimble taught school in Ashland, Columbus and Delaware. She was the first African American teacher for the Delaware City Schools and retired from teaching there in 1975.

During her lifetime she was active with her church, the NAACP and the Delaware Human Relations Council, among other civic activities. In her 2001 obituary, it is written “her commitment to those causes led her to participate in the march on Washington in 1963 to hear Dr. King deliver his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech.”

Catharine Birkhead died in 2001 at age 95 and is buried at Walnut Grove Cemetery in Worthington.